‘Peter Whelan has never shown any remorse for killing our daughter Nichola’
The temporary release of their daughter’s killer has left her family hurt and angry, writes
Beautiful, kind, and popular, with an infectious love for life, business student Nichola Sweeney was just stepping into adulthood when her promising future was brutally stolen.
Peter Whelan, then 19, broke into the Sweeney family home in Rochestown, Co Cork, fatally stabbing Nichola, 20, and leaving her friend, Sinead O’Leary, then 19, for dead after stabbing her more than 20 times on April 27, 2002.
Ms O’Leary miraculously survived and Whelan was sentenced to 15 years for Ms O’Leary’s attempted murder, and to life in prison for Ms Sweeney’s murder. The sentences were to run consecutively.
But despite assurances from the minister for justice in 2018 that Whelan would not be free ‘for a very long time’, the Sweeney and O’Leary families were horrified to hear Whelan had been temporarily released from prison under escort four times in the past three years.
They were more shocked to discover that Whelan has now been approved for escorted day release from prison every three months.
Nichola’s heartbroken father, John Sweeney, said: “The authorities are conditioning him for early release. They are setting him up for his parole hearing next year.
“He will have served just seven years for killing our wonderful daughter by then. That is no deterrent.
He’s a psychopath and he will kill again. If he’s released, he will be Ireland’s next serial killer.
“In April last year, the minister for justice told us that this was a crime of such horror that we had nothing to worry about, as if we were crazy to think that he’d be left out early. He told us that he [Whelan] had a long time left to serve.
“But he misled us, because he [Whelan] had already been out of jail in 2017. What if we had bumped into him here in Cork?
“We also found out that he had been released under escort ‘to hospital’ on December 25 and 26, 2014 — on Christmas Day, he was let out.
“This is a man who can manipulate the system. And he has never shown any remorse for killing our daughter,” Mr Sweeney said.
Nichola was much loved by friends and family. When classmates at her school in London shunned one little girl for having a cleft lip, popular Nichola stepped in and became her friend.
She shared the tips she earned waitressing with homeless people, because “they’re some mother’s child too.”
Kindness led her to feed her own lunch to stray animals on family vacations, and even though she hated spiders, she would never let anyone kill one.
“She was so kind and she was always thinking of others,” her grieving mum Josephine Sweeney said.
“Nichola was my best friend. We spoke about everything together. I spoke to her an hour before she was killed. She was watching a talent show on TV. When I called again that night she was gone. It was so quick.”
Sinead O’Leary, now 37, was with her friend in her final moments.
“It’s a privilege in a way that I got to be there with her,” she said. “I’m glad that she wasn’t alone.”
Nichola and Sinead were getting ready together for a night out when Whelan struck. Earlier that night, Whelan had been thrown out of a pub after attempting to smash a glass ashtray on a barman’s head.
Angry and looking for revenge — on anyone — he considered beating a stranger with a rock who he he saw while walking home.
But deciding a rock would be “messy”, he went home to get knives for the attack.
When he could not find his previous target, he crept up to his neighbours’ house instead, turning off the lights downstairs before creeping up to the girls chatting in the bedroom. He pushed Sinead to the floor, stamping on her, before stabbing her 20 times, breaking a knife in the ferocious attack.
Nichola ran from the en suite where she had been putting on make-up and screamed at him to stop.
Sinead said: “Nichola saved me because when she started screaming at him, he looked at her while stabbing me. I threw my arms into the knives to protect my vital organs during the attack.
“Nichola was screaming at him to stop and he kept looking at her, like he was enjoying seeing her distressed. We didn’t even know him.”
Nichola ran back into the bathroom when Whelan lunged at her.
Sinead saw the bathroom door close and ran from the room to call for help, slipping down the stairs on her own blood. She did not know that Nichola’s robe got trapped in the door and Whelan had forced his way in.
The killer had turned off all the lights on the ground floor, trapping Sinead in darkness. When she found a downstairs bathroom, her wrists were so injured that she struggled to lock the door moments before she heard his footsteps pass by the door.
“After about a minute, I opened the door and ran to Nichola, calling for her. I thought she had escaped but she was lying on her front on her bedroom floor groaning.
“I told her that we’d be fine, that we would get through this, and I grabbed her mobile to call for help.”
But a stab wound to Nichola’s heart was fatal and she died on her bedroom floor that night.
Whelan had returned to the house in clean clothes, playing the concerned neighbour as emergency services streamed on site. But gardaí quickly arrested him thanks to Sinead’s clear description of their attacker.
Mr Sweeney said:
The authorities should be very grateful to Sinead that she was able to identify him and prevent further tragedies.
“Instead, this is how the authorities have treated Sinead and ourselves — with three monthly releases.”
Sinead said: “He’s on a destructive path. That night, he had a lust to kill. If it wasn’t Nichola, it would have been someone else.
“And he is a serious danger to society. When he is released on parole, he will kill again. He has shown no remorse, he’s appealed his sentence every step of the way. How can you say that someone like that has been rehabilitated?
“By releasing him, the minister for justice is endangering society.”
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